It’s a gloomy day as I dial Yousra Ahmed’s mother’s number. I want to know as many details, as I can. But I’m scared as well. Scared that it’ll open all the wounds and bring back all the horrors of war. Wars aren’t pretty, people die and even if they survive, they get scared for life.
She picks up, we exchange the pleasantries and I am blank. What do I ask her and how do I ask her. I gather some strength and ask her about her home in Bangladesh.
In 1971, a war got started in Bangladesh where bengali wanted a separate country while bihari community wanted to be a part of Pakistan.
Since bengali were in majority, they blocked and destroyed all the paths for Bihari to escape and turned that land into a slaughter house.
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You wont find such stories of what happened to them in any book for the political reason.
As my mother describes it, she was somewhere around 15-16 years old at that time.
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She was living in Santahar where she witnessed the murder of hundreds including her own relatives.
As she tells, there are some stories i would like to share.
There was a bihari family whose son went out to find a way to escape leaving the family in the house. When he came back, his house was burnt down. He used to look like a bengali so he had to shut down his emotions as the whole house was surrounded by bengalis who were cheering up while the family members inside the house including his sister were screaming as they were being burnt alive. When after a year or two, Pakistani army took over, he had lost his mind in the pressure that he slit the throat of a bengali and started drinking his blood out of rage.
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She also tells how bengalis had decided dates to attack each district and area and biharis couldn’t do anything about it as there was no path to escape.
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According to her there was a highly reputable bihari named Sir Azam who gave guns to all the biharis and invited them at his house to fireback at bengalis. Bengalis outnumbered them and at the end, the leader cut the head of Azam, wore it over the top of it head while Azam’s blood was dripping over his shoulder and walked over the streets to show biharis how powerful bengalis were.
They had decided days of weeks to kill men, women, and children. As she recalls tuesdays were to slaughter men, thursdays were to rape and kill women, and saturdays were to throw children under the age of 5 into the river.
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Barely 2% of the bengalis were out to help the biharis they knew.
Everyone got killed.
The genocide was this horrible that when Pak army arrived and saw all the dead bodies of Bihari mutilated and thrown under the sun, they were full of anger and provided biharis (who were left alive) the guns to kill any mob they could find.
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She laughed and told how her friend didnt want to kill but Pak army’s guy was so full in rage that he said ” agar tmne na mara usy to mene tmhe maardena hai” and then he opened fire on a bengali mob who was running to hide.
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The only purpose of writing this is to tell how Politics covered all these messed up stories of one of the biggest genocide.
Most of the people in Pakistan (outside Karachi) dont even know who biharis are.
Always remember, any bihari you see over the age of 50 were a part of that war and they all will have nightmares of that war for the rest of their life.
Learn to respect them instead of being a moron and mocking them.
Politics of Pakistan failed to mention the war of 1972 where innocent biharis died just because they wanted to be a part of the country where they are being ridiculed.
This is the purpose why being a MAHAJIR is so important to us. When i look at my mother telling me how his father used to ask her to sleep while bombing and the war so she could die peacefully in sleep, i feel so ashamed of being part of a nation which never talks about these unsung heroes.
Syed Asim Iqbal This is highly informative and spine-chilling. My mother and her family also faced similar ordeals in Chittagong during the war. The stories she and my grandfather told me used to fill me with hate and fear.
